OJ Prosecutor Says Johnnie Cochran Tampered With The Gloves

Seventeen years ago, O.J. Simpson strained to put on a pair of leather gloves in the most famous moment of the former football star’s captivating trial. He yanked and visibly labored to stretch the accessories as far as possible, but they never made down to his wrists. His attorney, Johnnie Cochran, famously told the jury, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Weeks later, they did, and in the years since, asking Simpson to try on the gloves has been remembered as a horrible error in judgment. If you take it from the man who made the decision, however, the accessories may have been tampered with.

Former Los Angeles deputy district attorney Christopher Darden was participating in a panel discussion at Pace Law School focusing on the trial when he accused defense lawyers of manipulating the gloves to prevent O.J.’s fingers from easily sliding in. Here’s a portion of the quote, courtesy of Reuters…

"I think Johnnie tore the lining. There were some additional tears in the lining so that O.J.'s fingers couldn't go all the way up into the glove."

Cochran passed away several years ago, rendering himself unable to answer the accusation, but Alan Dershowitz, who represented O.J. alongside the legendary lawyer, leapt to his former colleague’s defense, saying Darden was simply trying to blame “the greatest legal blunder of the 20th century” on a dead man. More than two decades removed from the trial, it’s unlikely anything will come of the new allegations. Instead, they’ll simply go down as yet another layer to the most famous trial of most of our lifetimes.